We have a lot of respect for the folks at Wikipedia. It's an immeasurably valuable resource that we use every single day. And we can't imagine it's easy dealing with what's certainly their biggest headache: People logging onto their site just to post random crap and mess with the entries. You know, message board trolls, bored teenagers ... and oh yeah, Jay Mariotti!

Turns out, Jay's Wikipedia page has been locked down " to deal with vandalism." So what horrible things were people putting up there about Jay? Well, when you take a look at the old version ... jeez, that's not so bad at all. Surely, Wikipedia has seen far worse. Why would they choose to completely shut down this particular page?

In this case we have a strong complaint about the article from the subject of the article. There is no need to quibble in such cases. We should nuke the whole thing and start over. It's more work to dig through 250 old revisions looking for the bad ones than to simply start over. Writing a single article is easy for us these days. And if we had to do without an article about this guy for a year or more, it is no big loss. I think we have to be very very firm in cases like this. (There is an attack site, trolls who hate the guy, etc. It's s stupid fight from somewhere else.)

The site, of course, is Jay The Joke, which, as far as we're concerned, is down there in the trenches doing the Lord's work.

But we can't lie to you: Not much in the world makes us happier than the idea of Mariotti typing out furiously worded letters to Wikipedia about all the things those mean, mean people are saying about him. If only his father could be enlisted in the cause!